“…..The aim of this report is to explore an impact of violence on medical education, with its specific components, such as education facilities, teaching hospitals, libraries, professors, medical students and all other directly related components…..”

“….Venezuealan Case Studies:

Threats / intimidation of medical personnel of the Central Hospital of San Cristóbal during protests: During the month of April and May several threats were reported against the personnel of the Central Hospital of San Cristóbal, Táchira state, because the National Guards forbade treating the wounded during social protests, intimidating some doctors who attended these wounded youth, despite the multiple protests that took place in the hospital, this intimidation did not stop.

Tear gas pumps near the Del Valle maternal and child hospital on 04/20/2017: The use of tear gas bombs by the Bolivarian National Police and the Bolivarian National Guard in Longaray and the Intercomunal Avenue of El Valle affected the patients of El Valle Children’s Maternity Hospital. Gases seeped into hospital facilities affecting workers, mothers and newborns17.

Detention of the professor of medical school of the Universidad Central de Venezuela, MD Óscar Noya, on 04/20/2017: Oscar Noya is a doctor and professor at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). He works continuously for the population that lives in the upper Orinoco. Through the Twitter social network it was possible to know that in the afternoon of Thursday, April 20, Dr. Oscar Noya was arrested, when participated in the protest. Moya was helping people affected by tear gas in Santa Monica, Caracas…..”

“…..12,000 to 15,000 girls each year are trafficked from Nepal across the border where they are sold into Indian brothels and forced to become prostitutes…..UNICEF reports that as many as 7,000 women and girls are trafficked out of Nepal to India every year, and around 200,000 are now working in Indian brothels………”

National Level Exercise

National Level Exercise (NLE) 2018

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) leads national-level exercises every two years. National Level Exercise (NLE) 2018 will examine the ability of all levels of government, private industry, and nongovernmental organizations to protect against, respond to, and recover from a major Mid-Atlantic hurricane. The scenario involves a major hurricane that makes landfall near Hampton Roads, Virginia, causing severe damage to residences, businesses, and critical infrastructure throughout the Mid-Atlantic. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria last fall reinforced our need to prepare for hurricanes, and NLE 2018 provides a well-timed opportunity to apply lessons from those storms in advance of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins on June 1.

Get Involved

There are many ways for individuals, businesses, and community organizations to participate in NLE 2018 and get better prepared for hurricanes. If you live or do business in an area vulnerable to hurricanes, it is important that you understand your risk, develop a preparedness and mitigation plan, and take action. Find resources to prepare for hurricanes below. Fact Sheets can be downloaded from anywhere you see this icon or by clicking on the hyperlink.

Threats from hurricanes include high winds, heavy rainfall, storm surge, coastal and inland flooding, rip currents, and tornadoes. The heavy winds of hurricanes can cause damage or destroy homes, buildings, and roads, as well as cause power, water, and gas outages. Watch FEMA’s “When the Waves Swell” video to understand your hurricane risk, then learn how to take action below.

Get Alerts and Warnings

Receiving timely information about weather conditions or other emergency events can make all the difference in knowing when to take action to be safe.

Download the FEMA App to learn what to do before, during, and after emergencies, and receive weather alerts from the National Weather Service for up to five different locations anywhere in the United States.

Visit your local county emergency management website to learn more about what notifications are available in your community.

Create and Test a Family Communication Plan

Make a plan today. Your family may not be together if a disaster strikes, so it is important to know which types of disasters could affect your area. Know how you’ll contact one another and reconnect if separated. Establish a family meeting place that’s familiar and easy to find.

Document and Insure Property

When a disaster strikes, having insurance for your home or business property is the best way to ensure you will have the necessary financial resources to help you repair, rebuild, or replace whatever is damaged.

Consider buying flood insurance. Individuals can purchase flood insurance through an insurance agent or an insurer participating in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). If your insurance agent does not sell flood insurance, you can contact the NFIP Referral Call Center at 1-800-427-4661 to request an agent referral.

Visit www.FloodSmart.gov to learn more about purchasing flood insurance and the National Flood Insurance Program.

Strengthen Your Financial Preparedness

Know your disaster costs. Taking the time now to collect and secure personal financial, insurance, medical, and other records will give you peace of mind and, in the event of an emergency, will ensure that you have the documentation needed to start the recovery process without delay.

Preparing for hurricanes and developing a plan will increase the safety of employees and customers and help you remain in business after disaster strikes. Maintaining business continuity is important. When you are able to continue operations after a disaster, you also improve your community’s ability to recover.

Participate in National Level Exercise 2018

Over 200 organizations, including all levels of government, private businesses, and nonprofit organizations, will participate in NLE 2018. Private sector participants should focus their play on May 3 and May 8-10, 2018. Participation options are available for all levels of play and businesses of all sizes. Businesses can also participate through National, Regional, and State Business Emergency Operations Centers.

The functional and full-scale portions of NLE 2018 will occur between April 30 and May 11, 2018.

Private sector participants should focus their play on NBEOC call dates (May 2-4 and May 7-9) and targeted private sector play (May 7-9). Participants from the infrastructure sector are encouraged to focus their play on May 8.

Contact nle@fema.dhs.gov to learn more about your options for participating in NLE 2018.

NLE 2018 Private Sector Capabilities and Objectives

Private and infrastructure sector participants will focus on testing the following capabilities during NLE 2018:

Information Sharing: Test the use of a benchmarking system to self-assess information sharing situational capabilities based on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Incident Management Information Sharing (IMIS) Capability Maturity Model (CMM), as well as the ability to provide updates to the community regarding the status of operations.

Request, Acquisition, and Movement of Resources: Test the ability to identify and coordinate delivery of resources from private-to-government, government-to-private, and private-to-private requests, as well as the ability to transport resources through waivers and exemptions.

Business Emergency Operations Center (BEOC) Capabilities: NLE 2018 will test and evaluate the coordination capabilities of State, Regional, and National BEOCs.

Private sector participants are invited to set their own exercise objectives as they align to one of the following three categories:

Organization-Led: The objective is specific to what an individual company or organization wishes to achieve during the exercise.

Market-Segment: The objective is specific to a group of organizations or companies, such as small businesses, telecommunications companies, healthcare networks, or electric utilities.

Cross-Sector: The objective is specific to a group of market segments or sectors and aligned to interdependencies between those markets and/or sectors.

Conduct an Exercise Internal to Your Business

Conduct an exercise on your own using the NLE 2018 Exercise Starter Kit. This starter kit is an “exercise in a box,” and includes exercise templates, a detailed scenario, discussion questions, and scene-setting videos to help your business prepare for hurricanes.

Get Your Business Hurricane Ready

Significant portions of the United States are at risk for the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes. It is important that organizations throughout the country, including associations, businesses, and community groups, understand the risks and potential impacts and prepare accordingly.

Download the Hurricane Ready Business Toolkit and take action to protect employees, protect customers, and help ensure business continuity for hurricanes and tropical storms.

Join the National Business Emergency Operations Center

The National Business Emergency Operations Center (NBEOC) is FEMA’s virtual clearinghouse for two-way information sharing between public and private sector stakeholders in preparing for, responding to, or recovering from disasters. Participation in the NBEOC is completely voluntary and open to all members of the private sector with a national footprint.

Preparing for hurricanes and developing a plan will increase the safety of your membership and help your organization remain open after disaster strikes. When you are able to continue operations after a disaster, you also improve your community’s ability to recover.

Spread the Preparedness Message with Your Membership

Help spread the word to your membership, partners, and immediate community.

Share hurricane preparedness resources like our How to Get Involved fact sheet, which covers how to get alerts, insure property, strengthen your financial preparedness, and more.

Get Your Organization Hurricane Ready

Significant portions of the United States are at risk for the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes. It is important that organizations throughout the country understand the risks and potential impacts and prepare accordingly.

Over 200 organizations, including all levels of government, private businesses, and nonprofit organizations, will participate in NLE 2018 between April 30 and May 11, 2018. Organizations of all sizes can participate by attending a national webinar on Hurricane Preparedness on Tuesday, May 8, 2018 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT.

You can also get involved by conducting an exercise on your own using the NLE 2018 Exercise Starter Kit. This starter kit is an “exercise in a box,” and includes exercise templates, a detailed scenario, discussion questions, and scene-setting videos to help your organization prepare for hurricane season.

Join the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (NVOAD)

National VOAD is an association of organizations that mitigate and alleviate the impact of disasters; provide a forum promoting cooperation, communication, coordination, and collaboration; and foster more effective delivery of services to communities affected by disaster.

The functional and full-scale portions of NLE 2018 will occur in the first two weeks of May 2018, focused on thematic areas identified from ongoing real-world continuous improvement efforts. This provides a well-timed opportunity to apply lessons observed in advance of the 2018 hurricane season. The NLE as a whole should be viewed as a large exercise series running from January through the summer, which will include seminars, workshops, and tabletop exercises, as well as the functional exercise in May.

Examine and validate the capabilities of federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, as well as private industry, nongovernmental organizations, community organizations, and members of the public, to take coordinated and inclusive protective actions prior to a projected major hurricane landfall in accordance with applicable plans, policies, and procedures.

Demonstrate and assess the ability of federal and non-federal government organizations to implement continuity plans and perform essential functions appropriate for incident conditions to sustain National Essential Function (NEF) 6.

4. Power Outages and Critical Interdependencies:

Examine and validate the capabilities of federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments to support the energy sector and synchronize efforts to manage the consequences of long-duration power outages and critical interdependencies.

Scenario

The NLE 2018 scenario will include a major hurricane that makes landfall near Hampton Roads, Virginia, causing severe damage to residences, businesses, and critical infrastructure throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. The scenario will include power outages and cascading effects to critical infrastructure systems, including impacts to communications, transportation, water, wastewater, and hospital systems.

NLE 2018 is helping to Build a Culture of Preparedness and to Ready the Nation for Catastrophic Disasters. All organizations are welcome to promote NLE 2018 and the National Flood Insurance Program by using customizable templates and information developed to assist in communicating the preparedness message to the community or your organization.

The National Flood Insurance Program Outreach Toolkit can be used to educate residents about the importance of preparing for a hurricane with flood insurance. The toolkit consists of key messages and templates that can be customized for specific communities or media markets.

The National Preparedness Goal calls for a secure and resilient nation with the capabilities required across the whole community to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk. To achieve the National Preparedness Goal, the National Preparedness System organizes actions to build, sustain, and deliver the core capabilities in greatest need of sustainment and improvement. As a key component of the National Preparedness System, the National Exercise Program (NEP) is the principal mechanism for examining and validating core capabilities nationwide across all preparedness mission areas. The NEP consists of a two-year, progressive cycle of selected exercises across the whole community anchored to a common set of strategic objectives that culminates in a biennial National Level Exercise. The National Level Exercise serves as the capstone event of the two-year NEP cycle.

The National Level Exercise is congressionally mandated in the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, which states that “the Administrator [of FEMA] shall periodically, but not less than biennially, perform national exercises . . . to test and evaluate the capability of Federal, State, Local, and Tribal governments to detect, disrupt, and prevent threatened or actual catastrophic acts of terrorism, especially those involving weapons of mass destruction,” and “to test and evaluate the readiness of Federal, State, local, and tribal governments to respond and recover in a coordinated and unified manner to catastrophic incidents.” (United States Code, Title 6, Chapter 2, Subchapter II, Part A, Section 748(b)(3).)

Capstone 2016

Capstone Exercise 2016 examined authorities and capabilities needed to ensure our nation’s ability to prevent terrorist acts against the homeland, coordinate the response to a catastrophic incident, communicate to the American people, and continue performing essential government functions during a disaster. Capstone 2016 involved a series of five events. The exercise began with an analysis of threats originating abroad and then transitioned into a domestic crisis management and emergency response exercise. (Read the press release)

Capstone 2014

Capstone Exercise 2014 was a complex emergency preparedness exercise comprised of five distinct, but linked, component events. The Alaska Shield 2014 exercise, sponsored by the State of Alaska to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Great Alaskan Earthquake, provided the central scenario elements: significant damage from both the quake and the tsunami it triggers affect the greater Pacific Northwest. Capstone Exercise 2014 included several preparedness activities sponsored by other departments and agencies and was designed to educate and prepare the whole community for complex, large-scale disasters and emergencies.

National Level Exercise 2012

NLE 2012 was a series of exercise events that examined the ability of the United States to execute a coordinated response to a series of significant cyber incidents. NLE 2012 emphasized the shared responsibility among all levels of government, the private sector, and the international community to secure cyber networks and coordinate response and recovery actions. NLE 2012 was focused on examining four major themes: planning and implementation of the draft National Cyber Incident Response Plan (NCIRP), coordination among governmental entities, information sharing, and decision making.

Preparing Your Medicine Cabinet for an Emergency: A Checklist

Posted on October 16, 2017 by CDR Ibad Khan, Pharmacist, Division of Emergency Operations, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response

If you read our blog on a regular basis you can probably recite the mantra “Make a kit. Have a plan. Be informed.” in your sleep. You are probably familiar with the important items you should keep in your emergency kit – water, food, a flashlight, and a battery-powered radio. What you may not think about is personalizing your kit for your unique medical needs or the needs of your family. Particularly, including prescription medications and other medical supplies in your emergency kit and plans.

As a pharmacist whose job is focused on emergency preparedness and response, I want to give you 10 pointers about how to prepare your medications for an emergency so you can decrease the risk of a life-threatening situation.

Make a list. Keep a list of all your medications and the dosages in your emergency kit. Make sure you have the phone numbers for your doctors and pharmacies.

Have your card. Keep your health insurance or prescription drug card with you at all times so your pharmacy benefits provider or health insurance plan can help you replace any medication that was lost or damaged in a disaster.

Keep a record. Make copies of your current prescriptions and keep them in your emergency kit and/or go bag. You can also scan and email yourself copies, or save them in the cloud. If you can’t reach your regular doctor or your usual pharmacy is not open, this written proof of your prescriptions make it much easier for another doctor to write you a refill.

Start a stockpile. During and after a disaster you may not be able to get your prescriptions refilled. Make sure you have at least 7 – 10 days of your medications and other medical supplies. Refill your prescription as soon as you are able so you can set aside a few extra days’ worth in your emergency kit to get you through a disaster.

Storage matters. Keep your medications in labeled, child-proof containers in a secure place that does not experience extreme temperature changes or humidity. Don’t forget to also include nonprescription medications you might need, including pain relievers, cold or allergy medications, and antacids.

Prioritize critical medicines. Certain medications are more important to your health and safety than others. Prioritize your medications, and make sure you plan to have the critical medications available during an emergency.

Communicate a plan. Talk to your doctor about what you should do in case you run out of a medication during an emergency. If you have a child who takes a prescription medication, talk to their daycare provider or school about a plan in case of an emergency.

Plan ahead. Make sure you know the shelf life and optimal storage temperature for your prescriptions, because some medications and supplies cannot be safely stored for long periods of time at room temperature. If you take a medication that needs to be refrigerated or requires electronic equipment plan ahead for temporary storage and administration in an emergency situation.

Check before using. Before using the medication in your emergency kit, check to make sure the look or smell hasn’t changed. If you are unsure about its safety, contact a pharmacist or healthcare provider before using.